Challenging Justice – My Experience

After the very first focus group about this project, I was hooked. The possibilities that could come from a project like this were infinite.

My personal experience with the police was certainly not the best. Being transgender didn’t make it any easier. I have been hate-crimed on public transport and threatened, to being physically assaulted by people throwing stones at me and shouting slurs. After trying to report it to my school, all I was told was that the school spoke with him and if he did it again, his parents would be spoken to. That was not good enough.

I also tried reporting it to the school police officer, I was told he’d get a statement off me in a couple days. Two years later, I'm still waiting.

Having the opportunity to participate in the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) is amazing because it gives me hope that we can make a positive impact on policing, especially with the lived experience of young people who are affected by policing at the centre of the project.

So, what have we been up to so far?

We have been working hard the past few months to create an idea that has lived experience at the centre. The idea we have come up with is a report on the intersectional experiences of young people in relation to frontline police officers (what a mouthful right?).

The questions hope to gather an understanding of what the current information frontline police officers have on intersectional experiences which will allow us to understand the training they have received and whether it is effective or not.

What this research project hopes to provide is the evidence base needed for the positive change to take place. We will host focus groups and interviews with young people in Scotland and gather their experiences in a trauma-informed and consensual way. We will then take this forward to frontline officers and gather their opinions on what young people have highlighted to build on our understanding.

One we have gathered the information from young people, we can then begin to analyse that data and figure out any patterns that may have occurred which will allow us to edit questions to suit the ever-changing needs of the project while standing true to the primary purpose of having lived experience young people at the centre of it.

What I have enjoyed most about this project is being able to discuss this subject with other people from different backgrounds who have come together under the same issue to create an amazing project, which we are all incredibly passionate about.

I hope to see this project grow into an important piece of research that shows decision makers the changes that need to be made on an institutional level in order to restore the trust and faith that young people have in the justice system.  

written by Kyra (pseudo name)